5 Key trends for Tech marketers

5 Key trends for Tech marketers

It’s good to know to be on top of the trends in the field of online marketing and especially in tech industry where everything is going so fast. Even if you are not in the tech industry it’s good to stay informed. If only to provoke some thoughts and reflect on your own (email) marketing strategy and tactics.

5 Key Findings from the Technology marketers Handbook

The handbook starts off with a list of 10 findings and Email marketing Predictions to watch for, we picked 5 of the most interesting ones…

1. The return of strategic marketing

Technology marketers have focused the vast majority of their recent efforts on tactics and execution, often at the expense of strategic marketing efforts. This year, marketers will realize that all of the hot tactics du jour, such as inbound marketing and demand generation, can benefit immensely from a little strategic marketing, particularly in the area of positioning. The fastest growing technology vendors share one common marketing characteristic – they’ve created a strong, memorable position in the mind of their customers.

2. Sales and marketing misalignment

There’s no issue that receives more attention in technology marketing than sales and marketing alignment. In spite of all the punditry, time, and money that has been thrown at the alignment problem, most IT vendors have failed to make meaningful progress on this issue. That won’t change this year. In fact, this year many vendors will punt on alignment and have marketing move slightly back up the funnel.

3. Customer powered marketing

Buyers want to hear from their peers when it comes to evaluating technology products and services. Marketers will use their existing customers (and prospects for that matter) to help create marketing and sales experiences for prospective customers. This will take the form of legacy collateral such as case studies, but will also take the form of innovative experiences such as real time, peer-powered Q&A.

4. Return of 1:1 marketing

In the enterprise segment in particular, look for a return of hyper-targeted, one to one, outbound marketing. Technology marketers will reacquaint themselves with the value of email marketing in creating deep, substantive relationships with decision-makers at big companies. Targeted account list building, appointment setting, highly produced media experiences, and multi-touch campaigns will all play major roles here.

5. Shelfware everywhere

Marketing organizations have been spending record amounts on technology the last couple of years. What’s not clear is how much this technology is actually being used and whether marketers are seeing real ROI. Given the fact that most marketing organizations are long on budget and short on people, it should come as no surprise that there are a lot of “shelfware” rumors floating around out there.

Jordie van Rijn is an independent email marketing consultant. Next to helping companies improve their email marketing results he gives email marketing training and is a writer and speaker in the field of online marketing.